You have been chopped.

This post is a "To Be Continued" so check back soon... (If you are confused, check out "Chopped" on the Food Network... new episodes on Tuesday nights at 10 PM)

This weekend we challenged Kevin and Tim to a reverse Chopped championship. We started with dessert. First, let's meet our contestants:

Kevin Raftery began his culinary career in 2002 (ish) when he decided to use his cooking talents to woo women. He won the heart of his current fiancee buy "baking" her a chocolate peanut butter pie that she proceeded to drop, face down, on the couch minutes later. He currently specializes in all things grilled and can spice up any dish to make it taste gourmet. He hopes to win the Chopped championship in order to gain recognition and perhaps even try his hand at one day grilling the perfect "Ryan Chicken".

Tim Heard is well known for his kitchen stocked with unusual and organic products. Dessert and baking are his specialties and he has been known to make himself a key lime pie on a whim. His "favorite childhood crisps" are enough to satisfy this eclectic cook, who also enjoys brown rice sushi and about 57 meals per day. His voracious appetite does not stop him from being a perfectionist in the kitchen, however, and he often apologizes for his delicious dishes before they are even served. Originally from England, this lad would make the Queen Mum proud with his mince meat pie. Becoming a Chopped champion has been a life-long dream of this serious chef.

Round 1: Desserts

The first "basket" contained the following ingredients:

We have: 

1. Buttermilk pancake mix
2. Honey
3. Cadbury mini eggs (chocolate)
4. Honey Teddy Grahams

According to the rules, contestants can use any items in the fully-stocked pantry (Heard and Haylie went grocery shopping that morning), but must feature the 4 ingredients in the basket in their dishes. For this preliminary round, time limits were not imposed (due to cooking space constraints). After approximately 45 minutes of silent and furious cooking (while Haylie and I played Mario Kart on the Wii), here are the dishes our contestants came up with:

From Kevin we have a play on a "Hoodwich", which he calls a "Chocolate Chip Banana Pancake Ice Cream Sandwich". This dish contains Cadbury egg pancakes prepared traditionally, then fried with  honey. Between two pancakes he placed Vanilla Soy ice cream with crushed Teddy Grahams inside. The entire concoction was covered in caramelized bananas cooked in peach schnapps and topped with honey and crushed Teddy Grahams.

From Tim we have a  honey cream cheese pancake "muffin" with a crushed Teddy Graham base. The muffin was served with organic strawberry yogurt and sprinkled with crushed Cadbury egg.

The judges determined the ruling on champion would not be decided round-by-round as it is in the traditional competition (we couldn't decide which of these disgustingly delicious dishes was better), but rather at the completion of the entree and appetizer rounds.

Stay tuned for Round 2!